


Haunted Kingdom

by von_gikkingen



Category: Black Panther (2018), Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Battle of Wakanda (Avengers: Infinity War), Dimension Travel, Erik Killmonger Angst, Feels, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Hope, Near Death Experiences, Serious Injuries, Wakanda (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-23 23:28:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30063219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/von_gikkingen/pseuds/von_gikkingen
Summary: “Does everyone who died here start to see ghosts?”“We do.”There is a lot to unpack in those two words but she doesn’t give him the chance. No, she immediately starts to prepare him for what to expect. Naming names.It goes on for A WHILE... “And that’s about it," she says eventually. "Well, no, it isn’t. But N’Jadaka is a whole other thing. We don’t really talk about him.”
Relationships: Karl Mordo & Original Character





	Haunted Kingdom

“I think this is where I say _welcome to Wakanda_. But you’re not. _Welcome._ You let yourself in, very much uninvited and we don’t have a great history with people who do that.”

“I was...”

“Dying. Yes. And so you went to the nearest place you could think of for medical attention. I do follow the logic, Mr...” she blinks a few times, trying to recall... “Mordo. I still don’t like that you’re here. No one does.”

There was more but she wasn’t saying it. Just stood over him where he lay, on this futuristic looking pedestal of clean, white plastic. Frowning. Disapproving.

It takes a long minute before she speaks again and all she does is flood him with facts about his condition. _Stable now_ is about the only part of her monologue he understands. “Now we can talk about what it was that attacked you but I’d hate to have to alter my personal theory about some sort of hybrid between a shark and a sabertooth.”

He swallows as the memory of the otherdimensional creature he encountered just before he was forced to enter this small kingdom resurfaces. Deciding she’s better off with her theory. Whatever it is she’s picturing it’s a good deal tamer than the nightmare that tried to eviscerate him as he braved one of the adjoining dimensions.

“ _Or_ we can skip than and I can just tell you about the ghosts. Since you’re liable to start seeing them now.”

“I... am...?” he frowns, not sure how is _this_ the next obvious subject for them to discuss.

“Now before you get the wrong idea, I’m not bringing them up because you’re a...” she pauses and does that blinking thing again – as though she’s going through her mental files in search for relevant facts. “A sorcerer. This isn’t _since we have you here you might as well earn your keep by banishing these incorporeal bastards_ kind of conversation. I’m just giving you a heads up. Same as I did for the last five people who died in Wakanda.”

“Died,” he repeats, certain that was _not_ the word she was meant to use.

“Technically died,” says the doctor, narrowing her eyes at him to let him know she doesn’t appreciate him getting all pedantic about this. “Were clinically dead for any amount of time.”

He nods, piecing together vague recollections of the confused moments between him crawling through the portal he opened to this place and this moment that was, for all he knew, several days later. Given how his injuries felt he wouldn’t be surprised to find patching him up took considerable time. And sometime during that time his heart stopped... “Does everyone who died here start to see ghosts?” he asks, realizing she’s waiting for him to speak.

“We do.”

There is a lot to unpack in those two words but she doesn’t give him the time. No, she immediately starts to prepare him for what to expect. Naming names.

“Now T’Chaka is just _not_ happy that we all know what he did. He _will_ try to corner you and _will_ try to justify what he did way back in the nineties,” she says. Toneless but there is real anger and disgust in her eyes as she speaks the words. “But you can get rid of him pretty easily. Just say something along the lines of _no child of your tribe should ever have been abandoned in the wilderness_. Works like a charm. Until the next time he feels like explaining himself.”

He nods even as he has no idea what any of that really means.

“Then there’s Zuri, but, really, this isn’t likely to be relevant to you. We only ever see him underground, where we used to grow the heart-shaped herbs. Getting all _this is my fault_ as he wanders through what's left.”

She goes on like that for a while. Naming names, naming reasons why the people in question aren’t at peace, their astral forms outliving their bodies rather than fading out of existence with their last breath as they should have. Mordo listens, trying to remember the dead that he might have to face if he’s forced to stay here for long. He listens but at the back of his mind he also wonders why it is that this woman, this medical doctor, finds the dead such an important subject.

And they _were_ important to her. He could see as much. There was a look in her eyes people only get when they speak of things that _matter_.

Maybe it was simply some extension of ancestor worship. The way she was brought up to think of those who have come before. Or maybe it had something to do with how she felt about death, being the one whose job it was to try to prevent it. He couldn’t say. But he _was_ certain this was something she felt a great deal about. There was a tone to her voice, the way she said the words _not at peace_. This was someone who was aware of her ability to do a great deal for the living – to make sure they _remain_ living – but was powerless to do anything but watch these lost souls wander around, clinging to the thing they will never have again...

“And that’s about it. Well, no, it isn’t. But N’Jadaka is a whole other thing. We don’t really talk about him.”

Mordo just stares at her. Can’t help it. Everything about what she just said is _such_ a major departure from what she was like throughout her little monologue. The care she took to mention every remnant of once living person by name, the way she clearly knew what it was that kept each and every one of them from finding rest. For her to utter the words _we don’t talk about him_ seemed almost bizarre.

“Anyway,” sighs the doctor, either missing his incredulous expression or ignoring it deliberately. “That’s what you have to look forward to if you stay in Wakanda. Mostly old men trying to justify the mistakes they made in life.”

“And N’Jadaka. Whoever that is,” he says, just to see how she reacts.

She doesn’t.

“So that’s just another reason to make sure we get you back to full health as soon as we can manage. You know, on top of the whole _we need you to protect this dimension from whatever lurks outside of it_ thing. Though we do. Need you to do that,” she says, blinking quickly, once, twice, before adding, “Especially these days when there’s simply... not enough sorcerers.”

It’s really something, those few words. The dramatic pause before she delivers them. And yet there’s not a whole lot of malice in them, even as she reveals that she knows exactly who he is and what he’s been doing before the state Thanos left the world in made him rejoin his old order.

He exhales, wondering how much more of this woman and her somewhat unfriendly attitude he can take. Then, just to be saying something, he utters a tired, “You spoke to Wong.”

“Wong,” she repeats, seeming a touch confused at first. “No. No, I spoke to someone who goes under _provisional sorcerer supreme_.”

“How did he take the news? About me...”

“Getting yourself mauled?” she finishes, something not too distant from a smile tugging at her lips. “Didn’t seem surprised. Almost as though he suspects you of having a death wish. Or at the very least a tendency to push yourself too hard to make up for all the things you’ve done to your order before this was the world we lived in.”

“He told you all that?”

“Eventually. When he realized I wasn’t going to stop asking,” she says matter-of-factly. But there’s that hint of a smile again. “I like to know who I’m dealing with.”

“Is that why you know the history of every ghost within you country’s borders?” he says. Merely guessing. Though that _would_ be an explanation.

She takes a moment, deciding whether to answer or, possibly, simply walk away and let _that_ be his answer.

“I know the history of every ghost in Wakanda because when I almost died...? I was four years old. I grew up with most of those ghosts. They’re as much a part of my life as the living.”

There is nothing much he can say to that. Though he does just about stop short of thanking her. For sharing that fact about herself. For giving him this one small insight into her that did a lot to help him understand her attitude. Some of it, anyway.

Next thing he knew she changed the topic to his condition again, making dire predictions about how long would the recovery take, even with the best medical attention they could offer him. Not even trying to keep it a secret – that this was one huge inconvenience to her and she really didn’t need it in her life. She had other, less problematic patients that were making claims on her time and here she was, wasting it on him...

...

“You were right. Some of them really just... wallow in self-pity,” he tells his less-than-friendly doctor a few days later. There’s no need to clarify who he means. There’s not that many subjects on which she’s willing to talk to him.

“And telling them that does _not_ make them see they need to get over themselves and let go of this place,” she sighs. “Speaking of... Since you seem to be well enough to be wandering around making new acquaintances, maybe you’re well enough to... how shall I put this...?”

“Get the hell out of Wakanda?” he guesses, not even trying to hide his amusement. Getting him out of here has been her priority since day one and she never made a secret of it. He _wasn’t_ welcome. For reasons that seemed to have a lot more to do with him than they did with the isolationist attitudes so many of the Wakandans still held to.

She didn’t want him out of her country because he wasn’t of her people – she wanted him out because everything she knew about him was just a long list of reasons not to want him around. Which... wasn’t entirely unfair.

It wouldn’t be all that hard to make a case for him being a villain rather than the opposite extreme and on some level he appreciated she didn’t pretend otherwise.

“Look – I know you like it here. Everyone does. We get really pretty sunsets. But you do have your own life and that karmic debt will _not_ pay itself,” she says with a shrug.

“I think that might work for me,” he says, just about managing to suppress a smile. “I _could_ leave right now, of course. But now that you mention it... one more pretty sunset before I go sounds good.”

“That’s a little self-indulgent,” she comments dryly. “Not sure I like that quality in someone who’s supposed to be protecting this reality.”

It’s the kind of comment that could be used as an excuse to end this conversation so easily. Yet he doesn't. Because this does _not_ feel like everything they have to say to each other. No, things feel far from finished as they stand here, facing each other in a busy hospital corridor.

“Can I ask your professional opinion on something?” she surprises him by asking just as the silence between them starts to edge towards awkward. “Is it possible that there’s such a thing as death and then there’s... something... else.”

“Yes,” he says simply. “They’re gone but they’re _not_ dead.”

He’s not saying the words to offer some empty reassurance, either. It is simply the truth. What Thanos did? It brought the end to half the lives in the universe. But it wasn’t quite the same thing as death. Though it was questionable how much comfort could that knowledge provide to those who suddenly found far too many people missing from their lives.

“Thought so. We wouldn’t be able to move for ghosts if that was the case,” she says, nodding to herself. And maybe he’s imagining it but... something in her expression softens, just a little. “Come with me,” she says after a moment’s hesitation. “There’s one more thing I could use a sorcerer’s point of view on.”

...

“He was gone. Nothing went wrong, nothing about the world he was leaving behind pulled him back in. His... what did you call it?”

“Astral form,” he repeats. “It didn’t persevere after his body died?”

“It _didn’t_ ,” she says emphatically, her eyes never leaving the figure they’re watching. One that seems almost corporeal as the amber light of a brilliant, ember-red sunset spills over it.

He doesn’t seem to be aware of them, this remnant of a person. He only has eyes for the sun.

“They tell you what made them want to stay. They’re always so _eager_ to tell you. It’s nothing but unfinished business with them,” says the severe Wakandan in a tone that sounds nothing like her. Her words are soft and mournful, yet tainted with a kind of desperation. It might have been nothing but an accident that rendered her capable of seeing what was left behind when someone unwilling to go just yet died – but that didn’t mean she knew how to make herself believe they were not her problem. She clearly thought it her responsibility to help them. 

She didn’t know to keep the dead at distance, no mattet who they were, no matter how undeserving of help.

“How did he die?” Mordo asks.

“That’s... too long a story,” she sighs. “All you need to know is that he _did_ day, in every sense of the word. His heart stopped and then he was gone. All of him. Not a thing left behind."

That is not enough information but something keeps him from asking. He just wait. She has more to say. 

“You don’t go from content to... this. Not once everything that was left of you has faded. I know that. If there's one thing I know it's the dead. But... here he is, defying everyhting I thought I knew."

"Any theories?"

"One," she admits. "He first came back the day of the battle. He was a warrior in life and then this thing happened and turned our country into a battlefield” says the doctor even as the last rays of the sun fade and so does the ghost. “I believe... I believe that what Thanos did here? It _stole_ his peace. We needed everyone that day. He could stand and fight with the rest of them if only he gave a different answer to that questionall those years ago.”

There is no answer he can give. There are pieces of the story he is yet to hear but it hardly matters. Somehow he _knows_ – she solved the mystery. What she believes is nothing less than the truth about what brought this man back from whatever oblivion the dead dissolve into.

Because he wasn’t here to fight on that one day when it mattered more than ever before, he now returned with every sunset. A ghostly apparition of regret. A desire to rewrite that one single moment when he made a decision he now had too many reasons to regret, every time the sun set on his desolated country...

“If you want to know if there’s something you can do for him...” he starts, glancing at the woman beside him. Her face is a mask of such melancholy it's almost painful to behold.. 

“I know how little can be done for ghosts. I’ve been failing to do anything more than hear them out for most of my life. That’s not what I wanted your opinion on.”

“What then?”

“If he could take a step back, after he was gone, _truly gone_ , dead to the world in body and soul... If he could will himself into _this_ long after the part of him that was capable of becoming a ghost faded,” she says, haltingly, as she struggles to find the right words. “Do you think he’ll ever be able to take another?”

“A step back?” he frowns. Wondering.

“He brought himself halfway back to life already. That shouldn’t be possible.”

“It shouldn’t,” agrees Mordo, since the words are spoken in a tone that tells him she might be willing to take him as an authority on the subject.

“And yet, here he is, every sunset. I just... wonder, sometimes. If there ever is another day like that one. If we ever need every last soldier we have... Can he will himself just one step closer so he can join the fight...?”

He thinks on it. He doesn’t want to give the answer lightly, not to a question like this one. “In my experience... there are people in this world that should under no circumstances be underestimated. Not when they feel what they fight for is _the_ thing worth fighting for. The only thing that will ever matter.”

That seems to reassure her. For just a moment she’s neither coldly amused and too serious, nor lost in her compassion for those who were no longer part of the world of the living. For just a moment she... smiles.

“I suppose now you’ve seen all that Wakanda has to offer,” she says then, her tone shifting to what he’s grown accustomed to. “Lovely sunsets but only at a cost of heartbreaking ghostly apparitions. What a place, right?”

The words aren’t completely devoid of sarcasm, of course. And perhaps it’s because of that he can’t help answering with, “I rather like it here.”

She opens her mouth, then rethinks whatever unfriendly remark she was on the brink of saying. “Well,” she sighs, “maybe try coming under less dramatic circumstances next time...?”

“I thought I wasn’t welcome.”

“When did I even say that...?” she replies, mock-confused.

He can only shake his head, even as his hands are already going through the motions of opening a portal for him to make his exit through. Out of this land he has trespassed on for too long. Ready to leave it and its people – dead and alive, both – behind him.

For now. 

Because these were strange times they were living in and there was no telling when will life offer him another excuse to return to this haunted kingdom. 


End file.
